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Getting
Fleeced
The Record
We the
people have been fooled again. The Cohoes School Board
advertised a zero percent tax increase. Wow! Good news.
And most voters, as well as the Troy Record editors fell
for it (6/19 ‘Voters should approve school
referendum’). But
school spending is going up by $3million – that’s a
whopping 13.4%! And this is before the referendum
expenses you want approved because taxes were not
raised. Now here is the $3 million question. How can
they spend more without raising taxes? Have the laws of
nature or economics been suspended? Does money grow on
Cohoes trees?
OK. Half of
it will be confiscated from other New Yorkers, including
those in Green Island, and sent to us via more state
aid. That still means the other half - $1.5 million
dollars - will come from property taxes. And how can
they collect almost 20% more in taxes without a tax
hike? It must be magic!
That’s
when I remembered something my grand daddy might have
told me. "Magic is just trickery". He was no
fool.
Two
significant events happened in Cohoes recently. A court
decision found Niagara Mohawk had been over-assessed,
and Cohoes just completed a citywide reassessment. We
were told the reassessment was to be "revenue
neutral" and not just an excuse to increase tax
collections. Only individual tax payments would be made
equitable based on relative market value. Has the city
grown 20% in the last year? I failed to notice. As with
NiMo assessments in the past, it appears the value of
Cohoes has suddenly gone up by government decree. But
try to explain that to real estate people when you want
to sell.
The School
Board, the mayor, and the unions they represent, found
another opportunity to pick our pockets. While the
people had their eyes on the tax rate, their
‘representatives’ increased taxes by raising
assessed value instead. How clever of them. Spending per
student will be almost $12,000 next year. Although our
school spending is exceptionally high, teaching results
continue to be embarrassingly low.
Raising
taxes without raising tax rates was the magic.
Reassessment was the trick. Once again ‘we the
people’ have been fleeced. Shame on us for behaving
like sheep. And shame on the Record for not reporting
the shearing.
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